Transition Libraries from a Collection to a Service Orientation

The role of libraries continues to change from serving largely as asset managers to becoming advocates for access and action. Librarians are increasingly seeking to become embedded in the faculty and student research processes, and librarians are often the primary advocates on their campus for open access, changes in intellectual property management, and institutional and digital repositories. As libraries take on these roles, it raises a number of key issues, including the development of new resources, the reallocation of current resources, recruiting and retraining professionals who can take on these new roles, and effectively advocating for new library programs and projects.

These issues combine to create key library leadership issues for achieving appropriate and acceptable rates of organizational change. For libraries to be better prepared to accept these challenges, they need better skills in strategic and tactical planning, and in the assessment of the quality of their services. To do so, they need to understand how to employ planning tools such as scenario planning, organizational dashboards, statistics, survey research, and focus groups.

This page is part of the Environmental Scan, one of NELINET's Planning, Assessment & Accreditation Initiatives.